


Metronome

by Cowboy_Sneep_Dip



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 13:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19395205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/pseuds/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip
Summary: They remember this. It has happened before, and it will happen again. Over and over, a reset of the clock, until the future is fixed.





	Metronome

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy y'all! A fun little writing experiment that I kind of want to add more too, so that might happen in the future! Hope you enjoy.

Lucina laid on the flat of their back, one eye half-lidded, the other gazing with curiosity at the sky above. The clouds formed shapes above them - a great mountain of cumulus, like pillows tossed into the corner of the empty blue.

Lucina frowned. They blinked. They lifted a hand to their lips and pressed a knuckle to the divot beneath their nose, expecting wet. Their finger came away clean, the dark navy of their fingerless gloves marred only by a splash of brown. Dirt.

They dropped their hand to their ribcage, pressing their fingers into the fabric of their tunic, prodding at bones and skin. Their hand was met with nothing - no pain, no blood, no torn nor jagged fabric.

Beside them, in the dirt, rested their sword. They reached a hand towards it, trembling, uncertain, almost with disbelief. Its hilt felt smooth, the leather of it weathered by time and warmed by the light of the sun. Lucina blinked at it.

Falchion’s blade shimmered back.

Something lingered on the edges of Lucina thoughts. Something uncertain, something frightful.

The notion that they had done this before.

They pushed themself to their feet slowly, sheathed their sword, and took stock of themself and their surroundings. Clothes seemed intact - no rips nor tears, no dents in the heavy mail that hung on their torso and poked out from the fringes of their tunic. Their cloak was bunched up at their neck and dirty from their position on the ground, but otherwise fine. At their belt hung a mask - edged in gold, molded into a butterfly shape. They pressed a finger against it curiously.

The metal felt slick and cool.

No wounds, either. They did a few stretches as they walked, cracking joins, working out cricks in their neck.

Lucina paused at the edge of a stream and knelt, reaching their hands to cup the clear water.

A droplet of red hit the clear surface and pillowed outwards, a ring of red expanding into the stream. As it hit, a sound echoed in their head - a piercing ring, like a hammer against a bell. Lucina nearly doubled over as the pain struck.

They pressed a hand to their mouth and it came away red this time.

Blood streamed from their nose, dampening their lips and tracking down the front of their tunic as they collapsed back into the dirt.

Their head pounded, their ears rang with the echoing sound, and above them a bird flitted across the treetops.

-

Lucina just couldn’t shake the feeling of familiarity, not as they pressed the molded metal of their butterfly mask to their face, not as they unsheathed their blade in the sparring arenas of Regna Ferox.

They felt like an actor in a play more than they felt like their own person - with each swing of their sword, each conversation, they felt with increasing certainty that they must have some sort of gift for prescience - a hallmark of the brand in their eye, perhaps.

Basilio, the Feroxi Khan, knocks a cup of wine over at dinner. Before it hits the ground Lucina lunges, darting out a slick hand to catch it before even a droplet spills.

“Quick reflexes,” the large man laughs. “I like that in a champion.”

“T-thank you, sir,” Lucina muttered, their voice low and gravely. They tried speaking with confidence, even though each sentence made them question their station.

Things were not as they remembered them.

That’s not right, is it? Why would they remember things? They had not been to Regna Ferox, not since their own time, when the arena was burnt to ash and the banquet halls were stripped for wood and stone. They remembered the snow piling up against one of the pillars that remained. They had huddled for warmth beneath it and watched the sky’s ashy grey meld into the pitch of night.

They stared into their soup with detachment. It was some traditional Feroxi fare, something with a dark broth and tender meat, but each bite turned to ash in their mouth.

Lucina's throat was dry. Wine didn’t help.

“It’s not right,” they said, loudly, lashing out and knocking a sword from an attendant’s hand.

The girl scowled at them, puzzled.

They were in the arena again.

Again?

They had unseated the prior champion here. Of course.

Lucina nodded as the page-girl helped them pull their mail over their head. The weight of the metal felt heavy on their shoulders, but it was comforting, like a familiar embrace.

Their sword rested against their hip as they stared across the arena.

The voice of the crowd melted into nothingness, white static that crackled in their ear, distant thunder too far off to signal rain.

A man stood at the far end of the arena. He was speaking to someone - a woman Lucina can’t remember.

“Father…?” they asked.

Basilio laughed and clapped a heavy hand on their shoulder.

“Now, now, don’t be getting ahead of yourself,” he laughed, his voice kind and jovial. “I’d see you defend my title before taking on a ward.”

“N-no,” Lucina said, and in their hesitance their voice rose an octave.

Basilio frowned. “Just win, boy.”

Lucina nodded. “Of course.”

They hung back, watching the battle unfold. They knew it was their father right away - they had expected him, known he would be here. He was last time, too.

They shook their head and tightened their grip on Falchion’s hilt. Things still felt strange, like a hazy memory, or a dream. Lucina knew every step the Exalt would take - left, dodge, blade crashing against the heavy red armor of a Feroxi knight.

Lucina watched him move, trying to predict how it would unfold with accuracy that alarmed themself. The other one, the white-haired tactician, gave orders, but those too unfolded like a book in Lucina’ sight.

“Robin,” Lucina breathed. The woman at Chrom’s side fought valiantly, but even her moves were nothing compared to the movement of Lucina’s eyes.

The flat of a blade connects with Lucina's ribcage and sends them to the floor. The shock to their system kicks them into gear immediately, and they draw Falchion.

It wasn’t their father that hit them - it was another knight, the red one. Lucina couldn’t remember her name, but they could remember her daughter’s dark hair and kind smile.

Lucina gritted their teeth and lunged. Falchion shimmered like silver in the light.

They felt frustrated by the blow, as if it were unfair. Something that didn’t fit the pattern. Why was Sully there, at the far side of the arena?

Sully?

Lucina blinked. Another blade flashed towards them, one they were expecting. They dodged deftly and lifted their blade to meet the newcomer.

Chrom was too easy.

His steps were predictable, his movements known ahead of time. Lucina easily stepped around his moves, blocked his blows.

“You’re toying with me,” he furrowed his brow, watching Lucina draw back and catch their breath.

They shook their head. “No, sir.”

“Then fight me with your all!” Chrom lunges forward and his blade flashes. Lucina ignores it, instead whirling left - a bolt of lightning sizzles through the air at their shoulder, leaving a whiff of smoke and sulphur in the air.

“How…?” Robin’s lips barely form the question before Lucina lunges, their sword nicking her side. Robin buckles, tucking her free hand against the blood seeping from her robe. “Chrom, we need to draw back! He’s too fast!”

The words echo in Lucina’s head, rattling around as if in a drum. They shake their head.

No. Chrom cannot fail here. The Plegian war hinges on supplies and aid given through a Feroxi alliance.

Lucina’s mind races, the scene before them splaying out in slow motion. Chrom dashing to Robin’s side, the knights and cavalry and swordsman with boots dug into the sand, players in a show, dancers to a tune only Lucina hears. They had done this before.

It cannot end here.

Lucina sheathes their sword and holds their arms aloft.

“You!” they deepen their voice, doing their damnedest to make it as gravely as they can muster. They remember playing with Owain in the castle courtyard, the funny voices they would give each character. Lucina is Ares, the Dark Knight. “Exalt! Face me, man to man.”

Chrom stares at them, puzzled.

“No blades,” Lucina says, folding their arm over their chest.

“You want to settle the future of my nation with a fist-fight?” Chrom asks, with disbelief.

“I wish to fight you on even footing. You are no match for my sword.” Lucina’s cheeks burn beneath their mask. They are thankful the shaking in their voice cannot be heard, nor the pounding of their heart. “To first blood.”

They take deep breaths. It would hurt, but pain was something they had dealt with before. Chrom needed to win, no matter the cost.

Lucina had never wondered what their father’s fist would feel like against their face. They taste copper and their vision fades to black.

-

Some things fit, some things didn’t. The arrangement of stalls in the market in Ylisstol were the same. The rain came earlier than they had been expecting.

The arrangement of guards in the courtyard is something they remember - patrolling pairs of two. Lucina remembers the hole in the wall through which they can slip. Chrom had shown it to them with some embarrassment. Lucina had slipped out from the courtyard with the daughter of one of the castle knights to look at the stars.

They stood on the hill overlooking Ylisstol and felt a pang in their chest.

It was home, but the shifting overlap of memory, of dream, of future and present, made it feel unreal. Nothing seemed right, nothing seemed to settle. Lucina had once tried Laurent’s glasses on, and the unfocused vision persisted. They blinked and took a deep breath.

This was not their home. This was not the Ylisstol they had remembered - it was considerably bigger, more intact, less marred by plumes of black smoke and the stench of corpses. This was no time to reminisce.

They turn and crawl through the bushes to the hole in the wall. It’s a narrow space, a better fit for a child, but their slender frame allows them to wiggled through with minimal difficulty. They are spat out in another row of shrubbery, thorned bushes that rip at their clothes.

They staggered out of the bushes, spitting leaves, wobbling out into the courtyard.

A cry rang out.

Something punched their chest.

Lucina stared at the wooden shaft of an arrow sprouting from their tunic that was quickly turning purple. They open their mouth to speak. They taste blood.

-

Lucina laid on the flat of their back, one eye half-lidded, the other gazing with curiosity at the sky above. The clouds formed shapes above them - a great mountain of cumulus, like pillows tossed into the corner of the empty blue.

Lucina frowned. They blinked. They dropped their hand to their ribcage, pressing their fingers into the fabric of their tunic, prodding at bones and skin. Their hand was met with nothing - no pain, no blood, no torn nor jagged fabric.

Beside them, in the dirt, rested their sword. They reached a hand towards it, trembling, uncertain, almost with disbelief. Its hilt felt smooth, the leather of it weathered by time and warmed by the light of the sun. Lucina blinked at it.

Falchion’s blade shimmered back.


End file.
